The Cosmopolitanism of the Poor

The Cosmopolitanism of the Poor

Chapter:

(p.21)
1 The Cosmopolitanism of the Poor

Source:

Cosmopolitanisms

Author(s):

Silviano Santiago

Magdalena Edwards

Paulo Lemos Horta

Publisher:

NYU Press

DOI:10.18574/nyu/9781479829682.003.0002

Writing in the Luso-Brazilian context, Silviano Santiago again calls for a cosmopolitanism from below. In Portugal, he writes, elite cosmopolitanism is bound up with the legacy of empire and empire-returned captains of commerce; it tends to be found in private school and luxury hotels. For the poor who leave Portugal for Paris, by contrast, cosmopolitanism is more likely to register as an experience of loss—perhaps most poignantly, among second-generation migrants, loss of the Portuguese language itself, a closing off rather than an expansion of familial and cultural connections. On the other hand, Santiago also contrasts the Europhile and state-sanctioned cosmopolitanism of Brazilian diplomats with the vibrancy of more popular modes of cosmopolitanism that emerge from the favelas and draw upon Afro-Brazilian histories and South-South resonances.

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